Nuns Say Romney is Ignorant of the Needs of Poor Families, Call Ryan Budget Immoral (and I Agree)

A group of Catholic nuns that garnered international attention for their “Nuns on the Bus” tour invited Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney to spend time with them so they could show him the needs of struggling families. They did this in response to a recent attack ad from the Romney campaign that attacked social welfare programmes, calling them “demeaning.”

One of the nuns said, “Recent advertisements and statements from the campaign of Governor Romney demonize families in poverty and reflect woeful ignorance about the challenges faced by tens of millions of American families in these tough economic times. We are all God’s children and equal in God’s eyes.” She went on to say, “Efforts to divide us by class or score political points at the expense of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters reveal the worst side of our country’s politics.”

The same group of nuns have also criticised the proposed budget by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) which would cut government spending to social programmes that help low-income families, among other terrible conservative ideas, in a way to reduce the deficit. It also proposes not cutting defense spending as much as was agreed upon after the debt ceiling crisis last year. Of course, it does not call for an increase in revenue of some kind, such as, I don’t know, letting the Bush Tax Cuts expire for just the top two percent of earner which would bring in over $800 billion (yes, billion) over the next ten years (more than enough to pay for all of “Obamacare”).

Another sister from the group explained their stance by saying, “Paul Ryan has claimed to be a faithful Catholic, and I have no reason to suspect that that isn’t accurate. What we do know, and what the bishops agree with us on, is that the document, the budget that he wrote, is not a moral document. It is not a faithful budget. It is not consistent with the Catholic social teachings. He may claim one thing, but it is clearly in opposition to what we believe.”

I’m going to do something I’ve never done in my life: I’m going to agree with a bunch of nuns.

No. Seriously. I agree with every word they have said (except the parts about God and stuff). Mitt Romney does not and cannot understand what regular people are going through, and Paul Ryan’s proposed budget would go against almost everything Jesus taught about helping the poor and unfortunate. Aside from the Jesus thing, the Ryan budget is just a bad idea. I don’t care if it goes against the teachings of some guy who had a bestseller. It’s just a bad idea to cut funding that millions of American rely upon to survive.

I wonder if these nuns will get a lot of media attention and then Republicans decide to yank out from under them any tax exemptions they may have (which I have no idea if they do), because they are getting involved in politics. When it doesn’t benefit them, then Republicans are all for separation of church and state.

Byran Fischer Calls For “Underground Railroad” For Kids of Same-Sex Parents

Bryan Fischer, one of the American Family Association’s most prominent radio hosts, is well known for saying outrageous and truly hateful things about…every time his mouth starts moving.

Tuesday was no exception, when he tweeted, “Head of Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households goes on trial.” Included was an article by the Chicago Tribune about a Mennonite pastor that is going on trial this week for helping to kidnap the ten-year-old daughter of an “ex-gay” woman and take her to Central America after a court ordered the woman to allow her former lesbian partner to see the child.

Only a few minutes later, Fischer tweeted a similar remark, “Why we need an Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/08/6065.” The link is about a man who is claiming that his problems in life were because he was raised by his lesbian parents.

…growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors. People in our community didn’t really know what was going on in the house. To most outside observers, I was a well-raised, high-achieving child, finishing high school with straight A’s.

Yeah, his life was terrible. Reading that man’s story, I find I relate to him very much. It has nothing to do with gay parents. I had a mother and a father. I was just completely socially awkward. This man just had social problems (which probably explains why he is a conservative) that prevented him from “fitting in,” and he blamed it on the one factor that made him different from the rest of his peers: gay parents.

I had no gay parents to blame, nor would I have had I been raised by gay parents. I understood my situation and remedied it, unlike this man that is blaming gays for him having a problem, who Fischer is now using as nothing more than anecdotal evidence to demonise gay parents. For every story he, and any conservative, can point to about a child not liking being raised by gay parents, I can point to ten of the exact opposite, and of kids not liking their “traditional families” with straight, conservative, Christian parents.

Fischer is calling for the kids in these kinds of homes, with loving parents who have the same genitalia, to be taken from their parents simply because they have the same genitalia. Not only that, but he is praising a man who kidnapped a little girl and tried to take her to Nicaragua to prevent her at all costs from seeing her mother (the one that didn’t go all Jesus-y).

Pat Robertson: Atheists Were Behind Sikh Temple Shooting

Not surprising one bit, Pat Robertson, the man who has said some truly outrageous and hateful things throughout his career on The 700 Club, said more hateful things on Monday, the day after the shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh temple, claiming that atheists who “hate God” and “hate the expression of God” were behind the massacre.

Here are but a few of the things Pat Robertson has said in the past, just so that those who are unfamiliar with him get a taste of who he is (emphasis mine).

The Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers?

Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different…More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history.

Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together.

The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.

Practice witchcraft?

You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.

I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that’s the way it is, period.

[Planned Parenthood] is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism. Everything that the Bible condemns.

[Homosexuals] want to come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers.

Those last three I don’t have to emphasise anything with really. You can find more fun quotes from Pat and others here.

My personal favourite, which was between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell two days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks (emphasis mine).

Jerry Falwell: I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

Pat Robertson: Well, I totally concur.

So now that we’ve established Robertson as a conservative, homophobic, sexist, historically illiterate, hate filled bigot, even to other Christians, is anyone surprised that he said this on Monday (emphasis mine)?

People who are atheists, they hate God. They hate the expression of God, and they are angry with the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshipping God. Whether it’s a Sikh temple, or a Baptist church, or a Catholic church, or a Muslim mosque – whatever it is – I just abhor this kind of violence, and it’s the the kind of thing that we should do something about, but what do you do? Well, you talk about the love of God and hope it has some impact.

He “abhors violence,” yet preaches hate, which I don’t think I need to remind people, causes the violence he supposedly abhors so much. Do I really need to say anything more at this point?

The man identified as the shooter, Wade Michael Page, was reported to be the lead singer of a white supremacist band at one time though, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Reports have said that Page did have several tattoos, one of which was theTriquetra or Trinity Knot, which is used as both a Christian and Pagan symbol. There was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Page was an atheist. If anything, quite the opposite.

White supremacy and racism are not things heavily connected to Western atheism. Most white supremacist groups follow some form of Christianity or another. This is why the Ku Klux Klan were Christians. This is why the Nazis were Christians. Wait. My mistake. The Nazis were all Satanists and homosexuals, because the “two things seem to go together,” therefore meaning that they were all godless heathens that hated God. Of course. It seems easier to justify racial purity, or anything really, when you have a god on your side who just happens to hate all the same people you do.

Page was also an army veteran and legally purchased the 9mm handgun he used in the rampage where he killed six people before being killed himself by police that were responding to the scene.

Why Do I Discuss Politics If I’m The Barking ‘Atheist’?

This is a running theme on my page, although maybe not as rudely put. A lot of people don’t like that I talk about politics a lot and not stick solely to atheism and religion. Many of those people who don’t like what I do with my page are libertarians I have noticed. They don’t seem to like that a page they Liked is constantly posting things that disagree with them and mock their ideology. They, not only libertarians but a lot of people on my page, seem to only want me to talk about atheism because my name is The Barking Atheist. Sorry, but I’m a Political Science major, kind of my thing. I love politics just as much as I love religion, if not more.

If I identified as The Barking Liberal, could I never say anything about religion? What if I’m The Barking Bisexual all of a sudden on Facebook, can I only talk about LGBT issues and never venture into politics or religion? That would seem impossible to do, as religion, politics, and sexuality are closely intertwined, especially in the United States where people are harassed, persecuted, discriminated against, and murdered for being atheists and for being gay, all in the name of some deity that doesn’t exist. Why would I not talk about all of that?

Just because I am an atheist does not mean that I can’t talk about politics or sexuality, or as this person above put it: I am trying to “peddle [my] Democratic BS and sexual insecurities.” Quick tangent. I don’t have any sexual insecurities. I’m actually quite comfortable and secure being bisexual, being engaged to a beautiful woman, and having a seven inch cock.

Being an atheist means that I should be talking more about politics and sexuality and how they all relate to each other, especially as I am bisexual. More atheists should be talking about politics and sexuality. It’s why we have the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the ACLU and American Atheists in lawsuits almost every day defending secularism and the rights of atheists.

America is supposed to be a secular nation though, one that is not filled with religious icons as mottos and on our currency. A nation that should not be bowing down to religious institutions left and right or giving them tax breaks, even though they clearly get involved with politics by endorsing/opposing certain candidates. A nation that is supposed to treat everyone equally, yet in seven states constitutions one cannot run for public office if they do not believe in a god, and in over forty states it is illegal to marry someone you love simply because their genitalia happens to match yours. A nation that prides itself on being colonised because of religious persecution from Europe yet persecutes those not adhering specifically to the Judeo-Christian myths.

Unfortunately, Republicans, libertarians, conservatives, and the like are the Religious Right. They seek to make the US into a totalitarian theocracy (less so the libertarians) by banning abortion, banning gay marriage (and gays probably), banning stem-cell research, banning sexual education in schools, banning the teaching of evolution and man-made global warming in schools, promoting religious texts – Christian texts more so – being taught in their place, promoting mandatory (Christian) prayer in schools, etc.

That is not only something that secularists and atheists should be handling, nor would they be able to handle all of that, but gay rights activists and liberals and progressives should be fighting along side them, because their interests for the most part are one in the same. They all want everyone to be treated equally, no matter their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation/identity, or anything else.

I can post whatever I want. I can keep “pushing political views” if I want to. It’s my page, and I can do with it what I want. Right now, not much going on relating exclusively to atheism, as far as I’m aware. A lot going on relating to Chick-Fil-A and other Christian businesses and organisations that want to take away my rights and the rights of millions of other people. That’s something to talk about relating to LGBT issues, politics, and religion.

Simply put, if people don’t like that I “peddle [my] Democratic BS” on my page, then there is this great thing called not following my page/blog. Just click the “Unlike” or “Unsubscribe” button. It’s that easy, and it’s free. Or you can create your own page about atheism and talk all day and night about how stupid religious people are and never talk about anything else. I’m sure you will never ever feel the need to post about anything relating to politics or sexuality.

Rant done. Woof!

Update: I overlooked this post apparently. This also epitomises what people think of my page.

Even if my page were about “Obama propaganda,” which it is most definitely not, so what? President Obama is a good president. Not a great president. A good one. I post updates, links, and articles criticising the president for not doing enough to combat Republicans and their stonewall, Party of No nonsense which is only hurting America. I also post about the Green Party, who I would vote for over the Democrats in a heartbeat if they actually had a chance in hell of winning. Nonetheless, the president is clearly a better choice than anyone the Republican Party has tried to sell us, such as Romney, Santorum, or Paul. This is what I mean by libertarians – libertarian atheists that is – being the most vocal dissenters of my page.

Why is atheism capitalised?

Another Update: I missed a lot of people saying they don’t like my page because of the political things I post.

More libertarians still.

One: Not a group. Personal page listed under People: Entertainer. Not meant as a community page. Facebook just calls it that. It’s my personal micro-blog outside of WordPress.

Two: That means I can do with it what I like. If that means posting “partisan,” “retarded left-wing bullshit,” I can and will continue to do so. Not much you can do about it. Don’t like it? Go away.

(Unnecessary) Qualifiers of Atheism

Gnostic and agnostic are qualifiers too often latched onto atheism. If someone claims to know that a god does not exist, then they are a “gnostic atheist.” If someone claims to not know, then they are an “agnostic atheist.” There seems to be this unwarranted emphasis on if someone claims to know something or not. It all just seems so unnecessary, but gnostic and agnostic, although the most prominent (and irritating), are not the only (unnecessary) qualifiers of atheism.

PZ Myers of the blog Pharyngula, and this is not an attack on or response to PZ, wrote a few weeks ago a post called “What kind of atheist are you?” In it, he describes four different groups of atheists: scientific atheists, philosophical atheists, political atheists, and humanists. I suggest reading the post. It actually is an interesting read about the different brands, so to speak, of atheists. He details the strengths and weaknesses of all these groups and why they are vital to the secular and atheist movements.

Then there is Theodore M. Drange of the site Infidels.org, who wrote a piece called “Atheism, Agnosticism, Noncognitivism,” where in part of it he describes different types of atheists and agnostics (because agnostic is a separate category from atheist, no matter what others would like to say) and their reasons and mindset behind being an atheist or agnostic. They are: disproof atheists, methodological atheists, mystical atheists, faith atheists, unknowability agnostics, zero-data agnostics, data-vs.-data agnostics, and data-vs.-principle agnostics.

At the end of it all, they are all still atheists though (except for the agnostics). They all do not believe in a god. Why the unnecessary qualifiers that really say nothing of importance about them? Why must there be these divisions within atheism and nit-picking at people’s personalities, what they think, and their motives for thinking that way?

Do atheists go around calling themselves “philosophical atheists” or “mystical atheists” when asked what their thoughts are on the (non)existence of a god? No. They just say that they are atheists, that they do not believe in a god, and they leave it at that.

Why then must we divide atheists between agnostics and gnostics? It doesn’t say anything about these people other than some of them claim to know something and others claim to not know. Okay. So what? Why is there so much importance put on those two qualifiers and not the several others that have been listed?

If people are going to use gnostic and agnostic as qualifiers to their atheism, then they must also qualify their atheism with disproof or methodological or political or scientific or any of the others. If people are going to put so much emphasis on whether or not someone claims to know that a god does not exist, then why not put the same amount of emphasis on why they are atheists or what it is about atheism they like or are most proficient with? To me they all seem just as important and relevant to atheism. Why not use them all? Why not call yourself a methodological agnostic philosophical atheist when asked if you believe in a god?

If they are not going to use those particular qualifiers, then don’t use any qualifiers, as they are nothing but unnecessary and do nothing but divide atheists into little sects and groups that are pitted against each other. I know many self-proclaimed “agnostic atheists” who won’t have anything to do with the so-called “gnostic atheists,” as they view them as just as irrational as theists for some reason.

Whether that is true or not (I personally don’t think it is) doesn’t matter. What matters is that atheists are fighting each other because they see one another as different from them. Not like scientists do where they respectively argue and debate in the peer-review process to find the truth. No. They argue and attack each other in a way we would usually only reserve for fundamentalists. That is not healthy for this movement. It divides and disenfranchises many atheists who have differing viewpoints on certain things or for different reasons.

I would probably consider myself as mostly a “political atheist” out of any of the four categories PZ describes and a “disproof atheist” of the categories Drange gives, but I’m not going to call myself a “political atheist” or “disproof atheist” when asked if I believe in a god or not. I especially would not call myself The Barking Political Atheist or The Barking Disproof Atheist (or The Barking Disproof Political Atheist). Nor would I call myself The Barking [insert any other unnecessary qualifier here] Atheist. Whether or not I claim to know that a god does not exist or if there is proof against a god or if I like politics the most about atheism, I am simply The Barking Atheist. Don’t wear it out.

Black Pastor Thanks Civil Rights Movement Then Says Gays Don’t Deserve Same Equality

Rev. William Owens on Tuesday compared President Barack Obama to Judas, the Apostle of Jesus that betrayed him, because he supports marriage equality. Not only that, but Rev. Owens, who is the founder of the Coalition of African-Americans Pastors and also a liaison to black churches for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), also said, “The President is in the White House because of the civil rights movement, and I was a leader in that movement, and I didn’t march one inch, one foot, one yard for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman.”

Basically, “I have my equal rights, so I’m going to fight against these people getting equal rights, because God said so.”

He then goes on rambling incoherently about equal rights and blood and Jesus, saying, “So the President has forgotten the price that was paid. People died or they suffered or they gave their blood to have equal rights in the United States. And for the homosexual community and for the President to bow to the money, as Judas did with Jesus Christ, is a disgrace and we are ashamed. We will not take it back. We will not back down. We are going to take action across this country to change the course that this President has us in.”

At first you think he’s starting to come to a point, then he just compares the president to Judas for some reason. Is he trying to say that LGBT people (the Romans) are giving him money for his campaign, therefore he’s betraying America (Jesus) by supporting gay rights, and that is a disgrace that they are ashamed of? I can’t tell. Rev. Owens has also launched a campaign urging black voters to not support President Obama’s bid for reelection because of his support for marriage equality.

I just find it funny that a black man, especially one who fought in the Civil Rights Movement, is trying to deny equal rights to another minority that is constantly stereotyped and discriminated against. It’s also disheartening though that people actually think this. Black support for gay rights is significantly low, and NOM has taken advantage of this. As documents that were uncovered during an investigation showed, NOM is apparently, but not surprisingly, trying to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” in order to prevent the advancement of marriage equality.